My paintings are made up of loosely connected images, creating fragmentary worlds that are often concerned with boundaries and an ordering of forms within and across urban and rural thresholds. Recent work references the public park as a constructed landscape made up of paths, flower beds, trees, open grass and playgrounds; a contained space of respite within the wider complexity of the city. The paintings serve as parallel arenas, bringing together images and motifs that are shaped by observation and drawn from memories of lived places, and shifting experiences of everyday moments. The arrangement of subject matter entails a playful negotiation between what is real and what is fiction; crossing and re-crossing the edge between the park as a place and the park as an idea for imaginative speculation in the material form of paint on canvas.
Fionna Murray studied at Chelsea College of Art, London, gaining a BA Honours in Painting before moving to Ireland to complete an MFA at University of Ulster, Belfast in 1997. She now lives and works in Galway and is a member of Artspace Studios in the city. She has exhibited
widely throughout Ireland, the UK and internationally. Recent exhibitions include: Bow, The City Gallery, Limerick 2025; Borders, Rua Red, Dublin 2024; Go Under The Ivy, Away From The Party, 126 Gallery, Galway 2024; Fionna Murray, The Dock, Leitrim 2023; Metropolitan Pastoral, The Hyde Bridge Gallery, Sligo 2019; Beep Biennial, Swansea 2022; Night Walking, The Eagle Gallery, London 2019. Her work is held in a number of public and private collections in Ireland and abroad, including: The University of Galway; The National Collection of Office of Public Works, Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris; Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Mayo: University of the Arts, London.